Shuttle XPC SZ170R8 V2: Small but Powerful

Compact, efficient and incredibly powerful if you spring for the right parts, the Shuttle XPS SZ170R8 V2 has a lot going for it. The small form factor of the motherboard does not take away from its power. Even better is its capability as a portable machine.

SGCafe.com

Student Council Presidents are usually those student leaders who are well-organized and have natural leadership skills. There are a lot of anime characters who have the traits to become an excellent Student Council President, so Charapedia asked which characters would make the best one. 10,000 people (46.2% male, 53.7% female) all voted for a total of...

About VR-Zone

Apparently HP didn't get Microsoft or Intel's memos about screen on premium notebooks/Ultrabooks being increased, as its new Envy Spectre XT ticks pretty much every other check box when it comes to being a premium Ultrabook. HP's new addition to its Envy Spectre range is by all means a nice looking notebook and the company has even managed to reduce the weight by a fair amount compared to the original Envy Spectre, yet it's not quite there.

Apparently HP didn't get Microsoft or Intel's memos about screen on premium notebooks/Ultrabooks being increased, as its new Envy Spectre XT ticks pretty much every other check box when it comes to being a premium Ultrabook. HP's new addition to its Envy Spectre range is by all means a nice looking notebook and the company has even managed to reduce the weight by a fair amount compared to the original Envy Spectre, yet it's not quite there.

The 14-inch Envy Spectre came in at a less than impressive 1.81kg and although it somehow still passed as an Ultrabook. HP seems to have taken some of the criticism to heart with the Envy Spectre XT as the company has gotten the weight down to just over 1.39kg, although it also has a smaller 13.3-inch display. Despite this, the Spectre XT is only 11mm narrower than the Spectre, while being 2.5mm deeper, but HP has also managed to shave 2.5mm of its height making it a mere 17.5mm thick.

Feature wise HP has as yet to reveal the exact CPU options, but we're making the assumption here that we're looking at a Core i5 or i7 ULV CPU here and it will of course have an Ivy Bridge chip. The base configuration will come with 4GB of DDR3 1600MHz memory and a 128GB mSATA SSD, although a 256GB option will also be available.

HP is also kitting out the Spectre XT with 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi with WiDi support, Bluetooth of some kind, a Gigabit Ethernet port, an HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, a memory card reader, a combined headphone/mic jack and an HD webcam. You also get a backlit keyboard and what HP calls an "Imagepad" or trackpad to the rest of us – although HP is using the kind that has no physical buttons – and let's not forget the four Beats branded speakers.

The design of the Spectre XT is appealing and so is the 8h of claimed battery life and HP even has a decent software bundle with a copy of both Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements included. Sadly all of this is for naught thanks to the horrible 1366×768 display, we really don't understand what HP was thinking here and it's not as if there's a shortage of 13.3-inch 1600×900 displays if the company didn't want to go all the way to 1920×1080 or beyond. It's sad when a big company like HP misses the goal by such huge margin on what is a premium product. Admittedly the US$999.99 (S$1,250) starting price is actually quite good for the Spectre XT when it arrives on June 8th, but we can only hope that HP will offer a display upgrade by then.